Confessions of a Book-Lover Part 10

"It appears that I must have possessed imagination after all," said Francis.

"If you will allow me to say it," said Caesar in his most suave tones, and turning his heavy black eyes upon the king's face, "you had too much. Had you possessed less imagination and more judgment, you might many times have destroyed the Emperor Charles. To challenge him to fight a duel was a gratuitous and very imaginative piece of civility; to let him escape as you did more than once when you could easily have forced an engagement on terms advantageous to yourself, was unpardonable."

"I know it," said Francis, bitterly. "I was not Caesar."

"No, sir," said Johnson in loud, harsh tones, "nor were you happy in your marriages--"

"I adore learned men," whispered Francis to Lady Brenda. He had at once recovered his good humour.

"A fact that proves what I was saying, that the element of judgment is necessary in the selection of a wife," continued the doctor.

"I think it is intuition which makes the right people fall in love with each other," said Lady Brenda.

"Intuition, madam," replied Johnson, "means the mental view; as you use it you mean a very quick and accurate mental view, followed immediately by an unconscious but correct process of deduction. The combination of the two, when they are nicely adjusted, const.i.tutes a kind of judgment which, though it be not always so correct in its conclusions, as that exercised by ordinary logic, has nevertheless the advantage of quickness combined with tolerable precision. For, in matters of love, it is necessary to be quick."

"Who sups with the devil must have a long spoon," said Francis, laughing.

"And he who hopes to entertain an angel must keep his house clean,"

returned the doctor.

"Do you believe that people always fall in love very quickly?"

asked Lady Brenda.

"Frequently, though not always. Love dominates quite as much because its attacks are sudden and unexpected, as because most persons believe that to be in love is a desirable state."

"Love," said Caesar, "is a great general and a great strategist, for he rarely fails to surprise the enemy if he can, but he never refuses an open engagement when necessary."

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"_Cola diritto, sopra il verde smalto mi fur moetrati gli spiriti magni che del verderli in me stesso 'n esalto_"

--INFERNO.

Strange as it may appear, it does not seem to be so much of a descent, or of a break in the chain of continuity, to turn to hear William James speak in letters, which have the effect of conversation. From the very beginning of his precious book I somehow feel that I am part of the little circle about him. The conversation goes on--Mr. James never loses sight of the point of view and sympathies of the party of the second part--and you are not made to feel as an eavesdropper.

Standing on the ladder, unhappily a rather shaky ladder, to put back "With the Immortals" on the shelf, I pa.s.s Wells's great novel of "Marriage," which I would clutch to read again, if I had not already begun this Letter of James--written to his wife:

I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral att.i.tude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!" And afterwards, considering the circ.u.mstances in which the man is placed, and noting how some of them are fitted to evoke this att.i.tude, whilst others do not call for it, an outside observer may be able to prophesy where the man may fail, where succeed, where be happy and where miserable. Now as well as I can describe it, this characteristic att.i.tude in me always involves an element of active tension, of holding my own, as it were, and trusting outward things to perform their part so as to make it a full harmony, but without any _guaranty_ that they will. Make it a guaranty--and the att.i.tude immediately becomes to my consciousness stagnant and stingless.

Take away the guaranty, and I feel (provided I am _uberhaupt_ in vigorous condition) a sort of deep enthusiastic bliss, of bitter willingness to do and suffer anything, which translates itself physically by a kind of stinging pain inside my breast-bone (don't smile at this--it is to me an essential element of the whole thing!), and which, although it is a mere mood or emotion to which I can give no form in words, authenticates itself to me as the deepest principle of all active and theoretic determination which I possess....

Personal expression is, after all, what we long for in literature.

Cardinal Newman tells us, I think, in his "Idea of a University," that it _is_ the very essence of literature. _Scientia_ is truth, or conclusions stated as truths which stand irrespective of the personality of the speaker or writer. But literature, to be literature, must be personal. It is good literature when it is expressed plastically, and in accordance with a good usage of its time. A reader like myself does not, perhaps, trouble himself sufficiently with the philosophy of William James as represented in these "Letters." One has a languid interest in knowing what he thought of Bergson and Nietzsche or even of Hegel; but for the constant reader his detachment or attachment to Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas is not nearly so important as his personal impressions of both the little things and the big things of our contemporary life. Whether you are pragmatic or not, you must, if you are at all in love with life, become a Jamesonian after you have read the "Letters"! And his son, Mr. Henry James, who, we may hope, may resemble his father in time, has arranged them so well, and kept himself so tactfully in the background, that you feel, too, that whether young Henry is a pragmatist or not, he is a most understanding human being.

The only way to read these "Letters" is to dip into them here and there, as the only way to make a good salad is to pour the vinegar on drop by drop. To use an oriental metaphor, the oil of appreciation is stimulated by the acid of wit, the salt of wisdom, and the pepper of humour.

Frankly, since I discovered William James as a human being I have begun to read him for the same reason that I read Pepys--for pure enjoyment!

A friend of mine, feeling that I had taken the "Letters of William James" too frivolously, told me that I ought to go to Mr. Wells to counteract my mediaeval philosophy and too cheerful view of life. Just as if I had not struggled with Mr. Wells, and irritated myself into a temperature in trying to get through his latest preachments! I am not quite sure what I said of Mr. Wells, but I find, in an article by Mr.

Desmond MacCarthy in the "New Statesman," just what I ought to have said.

This doctrine of the inspired priesthood of authors is exaggerated and dangerous. Neither has it, you see, prevented him from writing "The Wonderful Visit." Artists should feel, and if necessary be told, that they are on their honour to do their best. That will do.

If they flatter themselves that they are messengers from the Father of Light whenever they put pen to paper, they are apt to take any emotional hubble-bubble in themselves as a sign that the Spirit has been brooding upon the waters, and pour out; though a short time afterwards they may let loose a spate flowing in a quite different direction. Sincerity of the moment is not sincerity; those who have watched England's prime minister know that.

William James helped me to wash the bad taste of Mr. Wells's G.o.d out of my mouth. It seems remarkable that such a distinguished man of talent--if he were dead, one would be justified in saying a man of genius--should not have been able to invent a more attractive and potent Deity. Voltaire, while making no definition, did better than that; but Voltaire was a much cleverer man than Wells, and he had an education such as no modern writer has. When Mr. Wells preaches, he becomes a bore. Who, except the empty-minded, or those who, like the Athenians, are always seeking new things, can take Mr. Wells's dogmatisms seriously? Is it not in one of his "Sermones" that Horace tells us that the merchant wants to be a sailor and the sailor a merchant? Does he not begin with--_Qui fit, Maecenas?_ But Horace says nothing of the authors of fiction--Stevenson calls them very lightly "_filles de joie_,"--who insist on being boldly and brutally theologians and philosophers. Horace might have invented a better G.o.d than Wells; but he had too much good taste and too much knowledge of man in the world to attempt it.

The more one reads of the very moderns, the more one falls in love with the ancients. Take the peerless Horatius Flaccus, for instance. Do you think anybody would read his Odes and Epodes and love him as we do if he insisted that we should "sit under him" and a.s.sumed a pulpit manner?

This is as near as he ever comes to teaching us anything:

_Lenit albescens animos capillus Litium et rixae cupidos protervae; Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventa, Consule Planco._

Even Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who loved himself very much, showed in his translations of "The Odes and Epodes" that he could almost love something as well as himself. It does not become me to recommend books--everybody to his own taste!--but I should like to say that for those whose Latin has become only a faint perfume of attar of roses, like that which is said to cling faintly to one of the desks of Marie Antoinette at Versailles, the translations of our dear Horatius by Lord Lytton is a very precious aid to a knowledge of one of the most charming and most wise of pagan poets.

Horace says:

Postumus, Postumus, the years glide by us, Alas! no piety delays the wrinkles, Nor old age imminent, Nor the indomitable hand of Death.

We might have, in spite of the awful examples of Mr. Wells and the other preachers, who ought to confine themselves to finer things, desired that Horace should have gone further and told us what kind of books we ought to read in our old age. His choice was naturally limited; it was impossible for him to buy a book every week, or every month. The publishers were not so active in those days. But he might have indicated the kind of book that old age might read, in order to renew its youth. I have tried "Robinson Crusoe,"--the unequalled--and "Swiss Family Robinson"; but they seem too grown up for me now. I have taken to "King Solomon's Mines" and "Treasure Island" and that perfect gem of excitement and illusion, "The Mutineers," by Charles Boardman Hawes. I read it, and I'm young again. I trust that some enterprising bookseller will unblushingly compile a library for the old, and begin it with "The Mutineers!" The main difficulty with the Old or the Near Old is that the fear of shocking the Young makes them such hypocrites. They pretend that they like Mr. Wells and the other preachers; they express intense interest in new and ponderous books, in the presence of Youth--when they ought to yawn frankly and bury themselves in romances. But if the Old really want to save their faces, and at the same time enjoy glimpses of that fountain of youth which we long for at every age, let them acquire two books--Clifford Smyth's "The Gilded Man" and "The Quest of El Dorado," by Dr. J. A. Zahm, whose _nom de plume_ was H. J. Mozans. There you have the real stuff. Together, these two books are a combination of just what the Old need to found dreams on. If a man does not smoke he cannot dream with any facility when he grows old; and if he has not possessed himself of these two volumes, he cannot have acquired that basis for dreams which the energetic Aged greatly need. "The Gilded Man"

is frankly a romance, and yet, strangely enough, a romance of facts, and "The Quest of El Dorado" is the only volume in the English language when it deals with the El Dorado; it has all the most attractive qualities of a romance.

But they are not enough. To them I add, "Bob, Son of Battle," which the author of "Alice For Short," discovered late in life. It is the greatest animal-human story ever written, for Owd Bob is n.o.bly human, and the Black Killer devilishly human, and yet they are dogs; not fabulous dogs, invented by clever writers. A great book! It is too thrilling; it reminds of "Wuthering Heights"; I shall, therefore, read this evening some of Henry Van d.y.k.e's Canadian stories, and end the day with "Pride and Prejudice."

CHAPTER V

BOOKS AT RANDOM

Among nature books that gave me many happy hours on the banks of the Delaware--imperial river!--is Charles C. Abbott's "Upland and Meadow."

"Better," Mr. Abbott says, "repeat the twelve labours of Hercules than attempt to catalogue the varied forms of life found in the area of an average ramble!" _Soit!_ And better than that, "to feel that whatever creature we may meet will prove companionable--that is, no stranger, but rather an amusing and companionable friend--a.s.sures both pleasure and profit whenever we chance abroad."

Who that has made "Upland and Meadow" his companion can forget the extracts from the diary of the Ancient Man, dated Ninth Month, 1734, in the Delaware Valley? Noisy guns had reduced the number of wild ducks and geese, he says, even then. But, nevertheless, Watson's Creek was often black with the smaller fowl.

I do seldom see the great swans, but father says that they are not unusual in the wide stretches of the Delaware.

Happy day! when the wedge-shaped battalions of wild geese were almost as frequently seen as the spattering sparrows now!

Father allowed me [writes the good Quaker boy, in 1734] to accompany my Indian friend, Oconio, to Watson's creek, that we may gather wild fowl after the Indian manner. With great eagerness, I accompanied Oconio, and thus happened it. We did reach the widest part of that creek early in the morning, I think the sun was scarcely an half-hour high. Oconio straightway hid himself in the tall gra.s.s by the water, while I was bidden to lie in the tall gra.s.s at a little distance. With his bow and arrows, Oconio quickly shot a duck that came near, by swimming within a short distance of him. I marvelled much with what skill he shot, for his arrow pierced the head of the duck which gave no alarming cry.... Oconio now did fashion a circlet of green boughs, and so placed them about his head and shoulders that I saw not his face; he otherwise disrobed and walked into the stream. He held in one hand a shotten duck, so that it swam l.u.s.tily, and, so equipped, was in the midst of a cl.u.s.ter of fowl, of which he deftly seized several so quickly that their fellows took no alarm. These he strangled beneath the water, and, when he had three of them, came back with caution to where the thick bushes concealed him. He desired that I should do the same, and with much hesitation I disrobed and a.s.sumed the disguise Oconio had fashioned; then I put forth boldly towards the gathered fowl, at which they did arise with a great clamour, and were gone. I marvel much why this should have been, but Oconio did not make it clear, and I forbore, through foolish pride, to ask him. And let it not be borne in mind against me [pleads the good Quaker boy] that, when I reached my home, I wandered to the barn, and writing an ugly word upon the door, sat long and gazed at it.

Chagrin doth make me feel very meek, I find, but I set no one an example by speech or act, in thus soothing my feelings in so worldly a manner.

This example may be commended to players of golf, who are inclined to be "worldly." The episode of Oconio at the best is too long to quote; it, too, has its lesson! One reads Mr. Abbott's defence of the skunk cabbage, for it harbours at its root

the earliest salamanders, the pretty Maryland yellow throat nests in the hollows of its broad leaves, and rare beetles find a congenial home in the shelter it affords.

"Upland and Meadow" gives one occasion for thought on the subject of racc.o.o.ns. "Foolish creatures, like opossums, thrive while cunning c.o.o.ns are forced to quest or die."

For a stroll by the Thames--I mean the New England Thames--there is no book like Ik Marvel's "Dream Life," but for a day near the Delaware--imperial river!--give me "Upland and Meadow."

And then with what a.s.surance of satisfaction may one turn for refreshment to the continual charm of John Burroughs's books, "Riverby"